One Health is a way of designing health systems and services that look at the health of humans, animals and their environments collectively.

An estimated 75 per cent of infectious diseases that have emerged over the past decade have been caused by pathogens that spread to people from animals or animal products. These diseases include Ebola, Lassa fever and Rift Valley fever, avian influenza, as well as Zika.

Globalisation and urbanisation have also made it easier  for disease outbreaks to spread between species, within countries and across borders, threatening health security worldwide.

One Health is, therefore, a movement to forge collaborations in both research and applied sciences, among human and veterinary medical healthcare providers, social scientists, agriculturalists and food producers, wildlife and environmental health specialists and many other related disciplines.

Zoonotic diseases

 “Recent global disease events like the outbreaks of Ebola, MERS and Zika have underpinned the increasing impacts of zoonotic diseases on human and animal health.  It has also become clear that changes in the environment, like population growth and climate change, are drivers for the emergence of such zoonoses,” the Chairperson of the One Health Platform Foundation Board, a veterinarian and leading Dutch virologist and influenza expert, Prof. Dr Ab Osterhaus, stated.

Under the auspices of the “One Health Day”, individuals and groups from around the world will have the opportunity to implement One Health projects to highlight the benefits of a One Health trans-disciplinary approach towards solving the current critical global-planetary health challenges.

One Health conference

Meanwhile, from November 8 -11, 2016, more than 200 policymakers, development partners, public health experts and advocates from West Africa and around the world will gather to highlight the importance of addressing emerging health threats using a ‘One Health’ approach.

The first three days of the event will consist of technical meetings in which health officials and technical personnel will focus on next steps for integrating One Health approaches into existing regional and country-level systems and programmes, to be followed by a ministerial meeting where ministers for human health, animal health and wildlife will put forth a communiqué to guide future action for the West African sub-region.

This event is being hosted by the World Health Organisation’s Regional Office for Africa, the United Nations (UN) Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Commission, the West African Health Organisation (WAHO), the Regional Animal Health Centre (RAHC), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the World Bank and the U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Leaders from 17 countries, including the 15-Member States of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) – Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Côte d'Ivoire, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and Togo – as well as Algeria and Mauritania - will participate in One Health Technical and Ministerial meetings.